Is the Rise of Alternative Communities a Threat to Meetings Industry Associations?

Liz Lathan, Nicole Osibodu and Kamryn Bryce started Club Ichi in 2023 with 12 people. Over the past year, this online community has grown to more than 6,000 members with the merger of another group, Event Minds Matter. Membership offers free access to ‘content, conversation and opportunities to connect’; for $250 a year, the Club Ichi Insider membership adds year-round access to a Slack channel and the group’s trademark trips, such as a recent Barefoot Business Retreat on a chartered yacht in Croatia.

Judging from its rapid growth, the community’s creators clearly were on to something. “We saw a gap in the market,” said Lathan, whose background includes leading event marketing at top companies such as IBM and Dell. “No organizations were bringing senior-level corporate event professionals, and the freelancer and supplier ecosystem that supports them, together for peer-driven conversations and outside-of-the-ballroom mind-blowing experiences.

“Once you have been in your career for 10 or more years (90% of members have 10 years of experience), you naturally want to connect with other B2B event marketers. We knew we had the network and the know-how to provide an environment for this.”

ELX: Exclusive and Invite-Only

Another industry group that has taken off is ELX (Event Leaders Exchange), which has grown by 60% since the beginning of the year, now totaling just over 140 members. Like Club Ichi, its target is experienced professionals, and there is no cost to be a member.

But that’s where the similarities end. ELX is exclusively for senior corporate event leaders, with a small number of strategic partners (10%). It bills itself as “the only year-round, global, cross-industry community offering 100% peer-to-peer exchange in a confidential, Chatham House Rule setting.”

The biggest differentiator is that ELX is an invite-only community (however, senior corporate leaders can also apply through its website). Each applicant has a screening interview with CEO Nicola Kastner, a former global vice president of event marketing strategy at SAP, “to ensure they meet ELX criteria in regards of seniority, program complexity, and a commitment to actively contribute to the community,” she said. 

“This approach is essential to our ethos: We aren’t just looking to ‘collect logos.’ Instead, we’re building a trusted, collaborative environment for senior corporate event leaders willing to be active and engaged members in the community, because the more people that participate, the more valuable the community becomes to the members.”  

Are Industry Associations Concerned?

A glance at ELX members reveals many Fortune 500 companies across tech, financial services and other industries. This has attracted organizations such as Choose Chicago and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to sponsor its live events.

Annette Gregg, CEO of SITE, acknowledges that the rise of these niche communities creates a challenge for industry associations, which are also vying for the same sponsorship dollars.

“Sponsors are increasingly hit with more and more options,” she said. “They no longer can sponsor simply out of loyalty to an association. We need to understand their needs and deliver.

“I think associations in our space really have to consider these communities,” she added. “Many are free or low-cost, so there would have to be a compelling proposition for you to join an association for $500 a year. We’ve got to make sure that there’s something to justify the dues.”

This especially appeals to younger professionals, Gregg said. “The new generation is a little more cautious. They could be thinking, ‘What’s in it for me?’ I could go to events for free as a buyer, or go to a chapter meeting as a non-member and pay just a little bit, or I can sign up for an online community and just test it out.’”

Drew Holmgreen, chief experience officer at MPI, thinks one solution is for associations to build niche communities within their existing structures, as MPI has done through its partnerships. “We’ve seen marked increases within the LGBTQ, Latino, Asian and Black communities, and much of that has been spurred by partnerships with organizations like the National Coalition of Black Meeting Professionals and LGBT Meeting Professionals Association.”

Communities’ Target Audiences

Another group drawn to no-cost or low-cost communities are independent planners and people who are in between jobs, like Rebecca Carmody, former events marketing manager at Syncron. “I get more out of my learnings from Club Ichi than those webinars I have to take to renew my CMP,” she said. “That group has been so supportive and helpful.”

Unemployed for the past year, she recently cashed in airline miles and used hotel points to attend an event in Baltimore. “I got to meet everyone I had been talking to online, and spend the day. It was fantastic.”

Planners like Sarah Gannon, director, corporate events at Mathworks, feel it’s important to have multiple memberships. Though she has joined ELX, she is on the board of directors of the PCMA New England Chapter and is interested in joining CEMA. “The access to senior-level expertise and insights within ELX is unparalleled and not typically available in other industry associations,” she said. “This makes it an essential complement to my involvement with other organizations.”

Moving forward, Lathan sees room for various communities to exist alongside industry associations. “Club Ichi should not and will not replace what our associations do for our industry,” she said.

“Rising tides lift all ships, and we are all here for the same reason – to push our profession forward.”